Round 8 540 AD - 940 AD
I began the round by suing for peace with Ragnar lest we give Haithabu back. I'm going to focus on finishing him off, and with any luck will DoW with all expediency.
Got a little cash and alphabet out of the mix.
I whipped in Barcelona (cat), Seville (axe), and Cordoba (lighthouse) and switched to caste system for five turns. We haven't been burned by a revolt yet so I'm taking advantage of our spiritual trait. Nice move on your part going with the quick temple build in our new cities. No need for a monument with half price temples.
On the same turn, I traded Polytheism to Ragnar for the remaining 20
in his treasury and priesthood to Peter for 50
For our next tech, I chose civil service. It will take 9 turns and will save a turn or two for machinery and engineering. I set Cordoba to build horse archers to defend our turf from any random straggler while focusing on catapults everywhere else except our civilian builds in Toledo and our new Viking cities.
Ragnar immediately made the mistake of sending out settlers thus thinning himself out. He'll probably found one or two cities during peacetime. It will lengthen the war, but make it eaiser on us.
Looking forward, both Moscow and Paris are forest heavy presently. We'll need to scout them out again as possible National Park sites. I'd like to use Nidaros' forests to chop settlers and settle the south. There are actually several decent sites despite the ice and tundra. I'll make a potential dotmap towards the end of the round.
We got the Great Library.
This lowered civil service to six turns and I think reinforces the decision. We won't lose a turn of research switching to bureaucracy and will switch back to slavery the same to turn to work the whip right before wartime.
I did a lot of micro on a turn by turn basis switching scientists for production tiles in Cordoba, Seville, and Barcelona. My goal was to maximize production and keep the slider at 60% with a deficit around 25 without affecting the research time for CS.
Tech trading risks: I decided to trade currency to De Gaulle for Monarchy and 40 gold. Peter was the first to philosophy and is Friendly with De Gaulle. I'm hoping De Gaulle can trade for it with Peter and then trade it to us. Plus, it will ensure the Angkor Wat is built on our continent. Perhaps some
logic on my part but the 40 gold is also nice. I like to maximize the treasury in any way possible; also if some bad event comes up we need some cash to bail us out. I'm not labeling it as a mistake but perhaps an unnecessary trade; a monopoly on currency doesn't do anything for us. By the way, Peter isn't trading with us at all.
We had a chariot in Nidaros with 5 xp's. I gave him flanking I/sentry I (and named him Radar). I sent him towards Bjorgvin because with Sentry he'd be able to see into it. The picture doesn't show the list of troops but it is 1 sword, 4 axes, and an archer.
I was trying to gauge how much of our Haithabu garrison to bring along to take the city. 50% defense and six troops meant quite a bit. We'd need a few turns to reduce defenses. We should've had some spies because we could use a little revolt. It's one of the things mentioned before we started the game but haven't really had the opportunity thus far to build them. We just got alphabet. Given how spread out Ragnar is, we forced to garrison a lot of areas.
700 AD De Gaulle converts to Confucianism on his own. We'll probably need to reinforce with a couple of missionaries. Civil Service in 2 turns. A DoW in five turns, we should have all forces in place to finish him off.
720 AD Shwedagon Paya built (not by us). CS in and a switch to machinery (7 turns).
760 AD - The slider is going down due to our diminishing treasury. We're in need of a lot of infrastructure. I've whipped away an additional boatload of troops. We're ready and just for show....
It's on now!! I had the big stack prepped to move on Bjorgvin.
I was also poised to steal a worker across the continent.
We got him!!
Ragnar was poised to found another city in a sub optimal area. Our old woodsman II warrior had been camping there for a long time. I was going to try to keep him alive. Jelling is a good size, I hate to raze it, but we can do so much more with that turf.
I'm not going to bombard you with screen shots during the war. Nidaros is surrounded by troops and workers of Ragnar's but I'm confident they'll hold. I did whip a barracks in Nidaros and its about to kick out its first archer and will continue to build a couple more troops. Once Bjorgvin is gone, we can probably be a little more sacrificial with troops but not too much. Even though maces are around the corner followed by pikes/trebs, Peter's power meter is high and he's boxed in. Don't want to boost his confidence. All units builds in the north are now going to remain up there. I'm foolishly attempting the Mausoleum of Massoslous (spelling?) in Madrid. We've got marble and it's nice to have.
Bjorgvin fell on the second turn of the war. I had enough cats to reduce defenses in a turn. We only lost 1 catapult in the process, no soldiers. Quite fortuitous. It also had another worker and we got a great general during the process. I'm opting to keep it even though you pointed out it's location on the copper tile. Besides the mountain tiles, it's an above average city with good tiles. It's not on the river but we're expansive. I'm inclined to keep most of them and I'll give you my reasons.
1. The cities in the SW all have good tiles and it's all about working good tiles.
2. These cities will not be big producers but can have the basic infrstructure and then build boats, missionaries, and spies.
3. The other thing I like to do with these cities away from the front are build stables and supporting mounted units while using cities close to the front to build ground troops and siege. The extra movement allows them to catch up.
4. With all the infrastructure we need in our core cities, I'm not certain we can afford to build lots of settlers.
5. I'm in favoring of razing and building settlers to redo city alignment in the SE of Ragnar's (our) empire.
Jelling again, though, is going to be tough to raze with its size. That'll be your decision. I'm going to try to get some settlers going now so we have them down there in time.
I used a combination of defensive cats and axes to get rid of a small invading stack near Haithabu. Remember, we got the Great Wall from Nidaros so that's big GG points for combat in our turf.
To add insult to injury, it seems Ragnar was having problems with Barbs.
The war continued. Roskilde fell, kept it, again for reasons above. Got a stack moving on Jelling and Birka. Ragnar is moving on Nidaros, but he's not attacking. I also worked this in...
It's a good wonder. We'll rip a golden age at some point and now we'll get an additional four turns. Machinery came in and I squeezed in Monotheism (1 turn) before moving towards engineering.
The rounds ends with Birka falling. However, Ragnar was able to finish civil service and trade it to De Gaulle for feudalism. Presently, he has one longbow. I had a catapult/axe combo luck out in the Birka siege against a longbow losing neither. Jelling has one, we have a stack there but I'm not certain the stack can take the city.
Our GG and a Great Scientist (just got him) came in this turn and are both in Madrid.
Both Haithabu and Birka have a military instructor. We should build our army in the south.
Workers built a lot of road this round. You'll find them scattered about and heading south. We do need more workers as well. Before we take out Raggy last city, use chariots and horse archers to scout around for them.
Dot Map
Finish off Ragnar. We've got unhappiness issues. Research is low and we're spread thin. It'll be a quick turn around though. I just switched civics to CS and OR. Switch back to slavery in five to ten turns to crack the whip. Then we'll beat up Peter. Just post any questions when you check out the save.
yeah, verbose
, I understand.
him now.
) nor do you want to work them. 
